From Priscilla Ediare, Ado-Ekiti
The Ekiti Build Back Better (EBBB), a group campaigning for the Social Democratic Party (SDP) candidate, Asiwaju Segun Oni, ahead of the June 18 governorship election in Ekiti State, has reacted to the statement of Chief Bisi Kolawole, the People’s Democratic Party (PDP) governorship candidate, referring to Oni as a ‘nomadic politician’.
Kolawole, described as a former political boy of Oni, had on a radio programme last Tuesday in the state chided the defection of Oni from PDP to SDP, “after the compromised January 26 PDP primary election,” describing the SDP candidate as a nomadic politician.
According to a press statement issued by the spokesman of the group, Idowu Adelusi, in Ado-Ekiti, the state capital, on Wednesday, the group lambasted Kolawole, telling him that “calling Oni a nomadic politician is like the pot calling the kettle black. “If you want to see the original nomadic politician, it is in your backyard.”
Adelusi said the decision and eventual movement of Oni to the SDP was not about himself, but the collective decision of the Ekiti people, explaining that “previous attempts at a third force in Ekiti failed because the situation then did not call for it.”
He asserted that winning the election with the third force by Oni, and other contestants riding on the popularity of Oni to sweep the poll will surprise the likes of Kolawole in the PDP and APC.
Adelusi said Oni’s ambition was the Ekiti people’s project and that it was “thoroughly understood with the influx of supporters of Oni from the PDP and the All Progressives Congress (APC) into the SDP, aside from the army of supporters among government workers, pensioners, artisans, traders, teachers, professionals and students.”
The group’s spokesman asked: “When did the Ekiti PDP wake from its slumber? Has it been able to resolve the crisis bedevilling it? Any PDP ticket now is a mere tissue paper, because PDP has lost relevance, it is a spectator in the coming elections.”
